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Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal: Overclocking

FSB Overclocking Results

Front Side Bus Overclocking Testbed
Processor:	Pentium 4 Prescott LGA 775 840EE Dual Core 3.2GHz
CPU Voltage:	1.4125V (1.4V default)
Cooling:	Gigabyte G-Power
Power Supply:	OCZ Power Stream 520
Maximum CPU OverClock	245fsb x 16 (3920MHz) +23%
Maximum FSB OC:	272fsb x 14 (3808MHz) +36%

Oddly enough, the ability to increase the front side bus even further than stock when dropping the multiplier to 14 just wasn't there with the shipping BIOS on our test board. We contacted Gigabyte about this issue and they were able to implement changes within a new BIOS that allowed the 840EE to reach 272 fsb with a 14x multiplier.

Memory Stress Testing

Memory stress tests look at the ability of the Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal to operate at the officially supported memory frequencies of 533MHz and 667MHz DDR2 at the best performing memory timings that the Corsair CM2X512A-5400UL revision 1.3 will support.

Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal Stable DDR533 Timings - 2 DIMMs (2/4 slots populated - 1 Dual-Channel Bank)
Clock Speed:	200MHz (800FSB)
Timing Mode:	533MHz - Default
CAS Latency:	3
RAS to CAS Delay:	2
RAS Precharge:	2
RAS Cycle Time:	4
Voltage:	2.1V
Command Rate:	1

The Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal was completely stable with 2 DDR2 modules in Dual-Channel at the settings of 3-2-2-4 at 2.1V.

Filling all four available memory slots is usually more strenuous on the memory subsystem than testing 2 DDR2 modules on a motherboard.

Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal Stable DDR533 Timings - 4 DIMMs (4/4 slots populated - 2 Dual-Channel Banks)
Clock Speed:	200MHz (800FSB)
Timing Mode:	533MHz - Default
CAS Latency:	3
RAS to CAS Delay:	2
RAS Precharge:	2
RAS Cycle Time:	4
Voltage:	2.1V
Command Rate:	1

The Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal was completely stable with 4 DDR2 modules in Dual-Channel at the settings of 3-2-2-4.

We will now increase the memory frequencies to 667MHZ to see what effect this change has on the memory timings and stability of the board.

Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal Stable DDR667 Timings - 2 DIMMs (2/4 slots populated - 1 Dual-Channel Bank)
Clock Speed:	200MHz (800FSB)
Timing Mode:	667MHz - Default
CAS Latency:	3
RAS to CAS Delay:	3
RAS Precharge:	3
RAS Cycle Time:	8
Voltage:	2.1V
Command Rate:	1

The Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal was completely stable with 2 DDR2 modules in Dual-Channel at the settings of 3-3-3-8 at 2.1V and leaving the Command Rate at 1. We will now try 4 modules at this speed.

Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal Stable DDR667 Timings - 2 DIMMs (4/4 slots populated - 2 Dual-Channel Bank)
Clock Speed:	200MHz (800FSB)
Timing Mode:	667MHz - Default
CAS Latency:	4
RAS to CAS Delay:	4
RAS Precharge:	4
RAS Cycle Time:	16
Voltage:	2.2V
Command Rate:	1

The Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal was completely stable with 4 DDR2 modules in Dual-Channel at the settings of 4-4-4-16 at 2.2V with the Command Rate left at 1. This resulted in a slight decrease in benchmark scores during testing, but did not have near the effect of decreasing the scores when changing the command rate to 2. The command rate had to be switched to 2 once we passed the 675MHz level on this board.